Plucking Petals
by HecateA
Summary: One cheesy, stereotypical 'does he love me' trial, one girl who doesn't know what love is, one boy that hasn't given up on her, and... one kiss?  Oneshot.


**I was asked in a review for another story to please right more Jason/Reyna stories. A strike of inspiration last Christmas night while we were watching Gnomeo and Juliet with guests (not necesarily because of the movie), and now we'll just see how that goes. I still think you guys will like it! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jason and Reyna and _nobody_ owns Chuck Norris.**

* * *

><p>Did you ever try to throw an accountant in the ring with Chuck Norris? And not even the paranoid kind of accountant that took self-defence class, or active-lifestyle type. That was kind of what it was like to try and get Reyna into a relationship. Except even Chuck Norris had more pity than love did.<p>

She'd denied it and done so since they were… 14? Yeah; since they were 14, it'd been around two years now since he'd started to show that he liked her. And he hadn't given up on her. And now she wanted to hold on to him too.

But how the hell was she supposed to do that?

This was the girl who'd taught herself how to use a sword and weapons and shoot a gun on a pirate ship; a journey that had made her stone and taught her to trust a pinch of handpicked people. And before that she'd been living on an all-woman island where no men or mention of were allowed in forms other than rodent. And gods forbid romance movies, novels, conversations, daydreams… Or any other positive attribute of the opposite sex. And _after _all that she'd been brought to a place where she'd been taught that any other emotion should be buried under a heaping pile of pride, fearlessness, and fierceness- not that she didn't do that already. Because she figured that that was the best way to survive and see another day and not get hurt.

How did you get _that _to feel an emotion it barely knew?

Reyna didn't know, and she doubted Jason did either, but bless him for trying. After today, after how they kept reaching for the same paper in the _principia_ when they'd been sorting through recomendation letters, and their hands just kept touching… Jason even _teased _her about it- idiot that he was. And she didn't mind.

She definitely felt for him. She just didn't know if it was love or not.

It was like someone told you to fludenburgerson. You'd be like 'what the heck is that? What does it feel like? How do you recognise it? Is it good or bad?' That was Reyna with 'love'. It wasn't like she'd ever even _talked_ about it to anyone- not Gwen, gods forbid Hylla, and hell no to talking to Bobby and Dakota… It wasn't even like she even _cared _about most things related to the concept_; _about sweetness and stories and whatnot. She was Reyna, daughter of Bellona; she didn't care. She was a minimalist, a survivor, a make-do person. She didn't care what people thought of her; she did what she had to do and fought until she was dead- and she'd never _been _dead so she wasn't sure if even that would stop her. It was the nature she'd gone back to when she'd been kidnapped, what she'd become as a person. But this one time she'd like to have _a clue about what was going on_.

She plopped down on a rock.

"Gods this is so freaked up and complicated." She muttered.

She shouldn't even _think _about it. Circe had been wrong about many things; but she was right on this one. Gwen's boyfriend betraying them in the war and making the happiest person ever the most broken; Senator Hank cheating on a girl in the fourth cohort; the headlines she saw on magasines whenever she spent an afternoon in Berkeley with the legion, nearly all of them about divorces, drama, heartbreaks... It all confirmed Circe's most continuous quote. She'd said it more than Dakota drank Kool-aid, like a chant.

_Men are uncapable of telling the truth, because they can't admit the truth. That's why we show it for them. _

Reyna had always thought that her whole life, which was why it had always been okay for her to open a cage and refil the little bowl of Guinea pig feed, or drop a carrot in the wood chips. And even now- when she was a whole other person with a different life, a different metadology... That stuck to her. Because Circe had been right about one thing: the pirates _had _hurt her. And they'd been shown the truth for around 500 years.

"Is it true?" She asked out loud. As if a magic voice would pop out of the flower she spotted a flower growing out, near the long grass crowding at the rock's surroundings. Yeah right. She was even _asking __for help now. _

She plopped it off the ground and twirled it in her fingers, like she sometimes did with a blade when she wanted to scare or impress the living Pluto out of someone.

"All I have is chance," she sighed. She pulled a petal off.

"He loves me and I love him," she said. She picked up another one, "he'll break me apart." She picked another one off. "He loves me and I love him back." Another one… "He'll break me apart."

A petal got torn off by a hand that wasn't hers.

"He loves you." Someone said. She spun around and _screw this- it was Grace! _

"Oh gods- did you just hear all that I'm-" Reyna wasn't good with words; but she didn't babble. She didn't _do _babbling. Yet she was at such a loss right now… She gathered herself back together and smashed herself back together to at least _look _solid.

"He's lying like guys always do," she said picking off a petal and remembering one of Circe's continuous quotes.

"He's telling the truth because he can't lie to you since he _loves you_," Jason said picking another one off.

"He'll break me apart because that's how it all ends all the time." Reyna said picking off another one persistently. _They can't admit the truth. _

"He'll do everything to keep you on your feet because he's never let you down since he's _liked you for a long, long time_," he said pulling another petal.

"This is a bad idea because it's not what we're supposed to do." Reyna said plucking off another one.

"It's the best idea I've ever had because I know that _you _like me too." Jason said picking the last one off.

No more petals left. No more of this discussion.

"I win." He said simply.

Suddenly she knew. If there was an idiot out there who could be this familiar around her when she was such a stone wall, if there was anybody that could ease her doubt with flowers and who could know her that well, and have so much faith and persistance and her... It'd be this idiot. And it'd be _her _idiot.

"I think _we _win." Reyna said. And she leaned in and kissed him.

Hard stuff; simple solutions. Reyna had never thought that she'd ever end a discussion by plucking petals.

But she liked it.


End file.
